Grand-Am
Mae Van Wijk prep notes for Laguna Seca
Mae Van Wijk Goes Extra Mile in Preparation for Road & Track 250 SALINAS, Calif. (April 27, 2005) -- Although this Sunday's Road & Track 250 will mark the first Rolex Sports Car Series race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, most of Synergy Racing's ...
Edited: Apr 29, 2005, 3:42 AM
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Mae Van Wijk Goes Extra Mile in Preparation for Road & Track 250
SALINAS, Calif. (April 27, 2005) -- Although this Sunday's Road & Track 250 will mark the first Rolex Sports Car Series race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, most of Synergy Racing's drivers have competed on the historic racetrack with other series. However, this weekend will be 22-year-old Mae Van Wijk's (Houston, Texas) first race at the facility.
In preparation for this weekend's event, Van Wijk, the youngest female driver in the Rolex Series, traveled to Laguna Seca earlier in the month to participate in a Skip Barber Driving School and begin learning the twisty road course.
"Now I know to turn left at the top of the corkscrew," she quipped about her trip to learn the track.
"The track is fantastic. I think it's going to be one of my new favorite tracks, especially the corkscrew and coming out of that," continued Van Wijk, who will pilot the pipeservices.com/autobysite.com No. 81 Porsche this weekend in GT class. "At some points there's not a lot of high speed, but its still a really fun, technical track."
The Skip Barber School was not the only preparation by Van Wijk for this weekend's race. She and co-driver David Murry (Atlanta, Ga.) have also been working at Synergy's home base, Virginia International Raceway, for the last two days. Murry strapped in beside his co-driver in the 'passenger seat' to help her work on car control and getting the most out of her Porsche.
"She's fine as far as driving the car, but we need to work being able to extend the limits of the car without having disaster and going beyond those limits," explained Murry, who is also an instructor at the Porsche Driving Experience. "I am expecting to see some good results and some good changes that we can apply at Laguna and beyond."
However, Murry is quick to caution his young co-driver that Laguna Seca is unlike any other racetrack she'll compete on this season.
"At Laguna, the track does not have as much grip as a lot of other tracks," he noted. "It's more challenging and you've got to be more aware of that. The G loads are not going to be as high and the grip is not going to be as much. You can't expect to have the same amount of grip out of the car as you do at another track, but that's what makes this track unique and challenging on its own."
Van Wijk and Murry will join Synergy Racing's five other drivers at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on Friday for the U.S. Sports Car Invitational. Synergy will campaign three entries in Sunday's Road & Track 250 and a Porsche in Saturday's Grand-Am Cup 200.
For additional information on this weekend's races, including live timing & scoring throughout the event weekend and streaming audio coverage of the races, visit www.grandamerican.com.
About Synergy Racing
Team owners Cole Scrogham and Danny and Steve Marshall introduced Synergy Racing in December 2004. Based at Virginia International Raceway, Synergy Racing is an evolution of G&W Motorsports, which had catered to Porsche racing since 1996 and became the most successful team in the Rolex Sports Car Series with four championships, 15 class wins and more than 50 podium finishes. The team underwent a major transformation that included a name and logo change, as well as a complete restructuring into a customer-based championship racing business, which concentrates on the needs of the customer rather than the desires of the team. For more information on Synergy Racing, visit www.synergyracing.com.
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